With the 2024-25 NFL campaign set to kick off next week, it looks increasingly likely that the Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Dak Prescott won’t reach agreement on a contract extension before the season begins.
As a result, Prescott’s contract status will loom over the Cowboys throughout the season. If Prescott doesn’t play well or the team is disappointing, the question will be whether Dallas should move on. If he plays well and the Cowboys fulfill expectations, many will wonder if team owner and general manager Jerry Jones should’ve signed Prescott before his price went up.
Now, the situation is at a point where the player and management are taking jabs at each other through the media.
On Wednesday, Jones was asked where negotiations with Prescott stand after the Cowboys signed receiver CeeDee Lamb to a four-year, $136 million extension. The longtime team owner took a hard stance in answering that question, essentially saying that Prescott has established the quarterback he is and, thus, his financial market.
“You could easily say, if you hadn’t seen it by now, you haven’t seen it,” Jones told reporters, via The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “Needing to see, I just gave an explanation where when you look at a situation, you’ve also got to weigh, ‘OK, what are the consequences of the other side of the coin?’ Dak’s situation right now for me has more to do with our situation than it does with the merits of Dak Prescott being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
“I quit a long time ago getting bent out of shape about having anybody under contract or not,” he added. “There are all kinds of things other than a contract that could change the outcome of him being under contract: injury, level of play. So you can’t just pick that and say that should give you a better feeling about our team or me a better feeling. The whole thing has a lot of moving parts.”
Dak Prescott: “I stopped, honestly, listening to things (Jerry Jones) says to the media a long time ago. It doesn’t really hold weight with me.” https://t.co/wT742UnccH
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 29, 2024
Naturally, Prescott was asked Thursday what he thought of Jones’ remarks. Much like many NFL fans and media, the eight-year veteran said he knows that Jones loves to talk and dismissed the comments as noise.
“I stopped, honestly, listening to things [Jones] says to the media a long time ago,” Prescott said. “It really doesn’t hold weight with me.”
Or, in so many words, money talks?
Prescott presumably has the leverage here. He led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes last season while completing 70% of his passes for 4,516 yards.
Meanwhile, the market for starting quarterbacks has skyrocketed, with Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love signing enormous contract extensions and setting team or league records with their total values. Jones could have re-signed Prescott before the price went up (way up).
Prescott will be paid $29 million in the final year of his four-year, $160 million contract. The deal includes clauses that dictate he can’t have a franchise tag placed on him or be traded. So if the Cowboys don’t sign him, Prescott will become an unrestricted free agent after the season at 31 years old, an age at which he’ll still have effective seasons in front of him.
This standoff can be resolved within the next week. For now, maybe each side is trying to look tough. But the exchange between Prescott and Jones also shows that this situation could get ugly — if it isn’t already there.
